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14 October 2011
Tour de force
By Warren Pole

Unfiltered saddles up for a two-wheeled trip across the UK to investigate the curious connection between malts and motorcycles

Whisky and motorbikes, when taken in that order, mix terribly. This particular blend will not only land you squarely on the wrong side of the law, it’s also very likely to land you in a hedge, swiftly followed by an ambulance, and then a hospital, with a possible court appearance to follow.

However, when turned around to become motorbikes then whisky, this curious combination can become rather alluring. This may explain why there seems to be an unusually high proportion of motorcycling aficionados among malt whisky lovers. Intrigued by this odd blend, and always keen for any excuse to investigate the world of whisky further, a motorcycling mission was mapped out.
Having ridden, raced, tested and occasionally fallen off motorbikes all my adult life, and having been drawn into the beguiling world of whisky over the same period, the quest to discover what really lay behind the joining of motorcycles and whisky fell to me. Having procured 1200ccs of blazing bright red Ducati Multistrada, I left London as the sun came up on a fine summer’s morning. Destination: Scotland.

My first stop saw me peeling off the M1 for Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, home to Niall Mackenzie (pictured above). Scots born and bred (an official member of the Mackenzie clan, as celebrated by The Dalmore’s recent limited edition Castle Leod clan Mackenzie bottlings), Mackenzie is Britain’s most successful motorcycle racer since Barry Sheene. Having taken on the best in the world during his nine-year career in Grands Prix, he returned to the UK to win the British Superbike championship an unprecedented three consecutive times. When he’s not on a bike, he also enjoys malt whisky.

“Whisky was always around when I was growing up around Inverness, as my father worked in the distilleries,” says Niall. “The whisky theme continued as I grew up – when my wife and I got married we lived in Deanston [near Stirling], right by the distillery. I’d run past there when I was training and the smell was awesome.

“I grew up with basic blended whisky but, as I matured, so did my tastes, along with my bank balance thanks to the racing, and I discovered more about single malts. Nowadays, I have soft spots for Glenmorangie and Lagavulin.”

Niall says the combination of superb scenery and fine roads in Scotland make it a perfect riding destination. “The best Scottish ride for me is from Stirling to Fort William, through Glencoe. The scenery and the roads just get better and better the further up you ride.”
Pointing the Ducati back onto the M1 as I continued my journey north, the thought of the great riding roads ahead was the tonic I needed to see me through the drudgery of the motorways to the border.

Just after lunch, I pulled into the small border town of Longtown to meet Kai Ivalo, director of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society and editor of Unfiltered, plus a motorcyclist and malt whisky lover. Aboard his 1200cc BMW GS, Kai had agreed to be my two-wheeled guide as I headed north through the Scottish Borders.

We followed the A7 as far as Hawick, a town notable for Turnbull’s, a traditional grocery store which sells its own blended whisky, and known to motorcyclists for being the birthplace of legendary racers Jimmie Guthrie, Steve Hislop and Stuart Easton. There, we took a break and Kai explained his thoughts on the link between whisky and bikes.

“On the face of it, malts and motorbikes are odd bedfellows – but they are not as odd as you might think. Both are about celebrating the finer things in life, both require an adventurous spirit to get the best from them, and both bring people together with a common bond who may otherwise never have met.

“There’s definitely a connection. I’ve always enjoyed malt whisky and I’ve put that passion together with enjoying riding to take bike trips around Scotland. Stopping at distilleries is the obvious way to join the dots along the route.”

Leaving Kai, I headed to Edinburgh and The Vaults, the Society’s HQ in Leith, and my home for the night. Settling into a sofa in the Members’ Room, I considered this project over a fine dram of Cask No. 50.44, the sweet and fruity ‘A pleasant little charmer’. It was becoming clear the parallels between these two seemingly disparate passions were deeper than I had imagined.

The next morning, I set off for Aberfeldy distillery, which is wonderfully located at the end of one of the best roads (the A827 from Ballinluig to Aberfeldy) I had ridden in a long time. I was there to meet production operator Kevin Davie (pictured, right). With his sparkling 750cc Suzuki sports bike parked up at the entrance and clad in his finest leathers, Davie wasn’t hard to spot, and in no time we were talking bikes and malts.

Kevin admitted to being bemused when he first heard the reason for my visit, saying he “thought it was a wind-up”. But the more we chatted, the more we found links between our shared passions. For Kevin, the whisky wasn’t just a great excuse to hit the road, it was also the perfect way to end a great ride.

“If I could ride to any distillery, it would be Glenmorangie. It’s about 250 miles there and back and, if you pick the right route, it could be an excellent ride. At the end of a ride like that there’s only one whisky I’d choose as a post-ride refresher and that’s the Aberfeldy 12 year old.”

The idea of a fine dram after a fine ride continued as I caught up with Jimmy Nicoll, a bioplant technician at Glenfarclas. Flying the flag for his distillery just as Kevin had for Aberfeldy, Jimmy chose the Glenfarclas 10 year old as his ideal tipple after a day’s riding, adding with a knowing wink, “it’s a good dram and good for calming the nerves too!”

Looking at his well-ridden 1200cc Suzuki, it was clear Jimmy enjoyed his riding to the limit, and a drop of whisky at the end of the road would no doubt help ease him back into a more relaxed frame of mind.

As we chatted, Jimmy took me on a tour of the distillery, which is blessed with a cracking tranquil location at the base of the Ben Rinnes mountain and gorgeous old stone buildings. Reinforcing the point he had made earlier, Jimmy confessed during the tour that he’d had the odd bad experience with both whisky and motorbikes over the years – hangovers and crashes – but never at the same time of course, and nothing that was ever serious enough to put him off either. “The horse knocks you off, you always get back on,” he laughs.
Leaving Glenfarclas, this trip was really starting to make sense. My zig-zagging route was giving me a new window on Scotland, and a new window on whisky too, as all the characters I was meeting shared their passion for it with me.

GlenDronach was the next distillery on this tour, but it turned out the person I had hoped to meet was 170 miles away in Edinburgh. Yet in keeping with the spirit of this trip, this wasn’t an issue. The detour to GlenDronach had uncovered another gem of a riding road (the A920 from Dufftown), while finding myself with time to kill provided a perfect opportunity to check out another new distillery.
Better still, manager Alan McConnochie, a genial host, showed me around and even procured a couple of samples for me to stash in the Ducati’s panniers. Not a biker himself, he did however agree that there were a disproportionately high number of bikers within the whisky world.

“Something to do with being a little bit unhinged perhaps,” he suggests. I had to agree he could be onto something there before firing up the big red Duke and making for the final stop of the day, BenRiach, just outside Elgin.

Here, manager Stewart Buchanan combines his twin passions of whisky and motorcycles to the ultimate degree. Not only does he have a whole distillery to himself in the midst of some of the best riding roads in Europe, he also has plenty of storage space for his burgeoning bike collection, which currently stands at three complete running bikes, with two more in the process of being rebuilt.
Just as everyone has different tastes in whisky, so all riders have different tastes in bikes. As I was learning with each new meeting, it seemed bikers with a penchant for whisky were as selective about their bikes as they were their drams. Among the machinery I had seen so far, there were no casual choices – every bike had been clearly chosen with a seasoned eye.

Buchanan’s motley collection ran to a classic off-road Yamaha, a beefy Kawasaki muscle bike, and a gem of an early Kawasaki superbike. I had posters of the latter on my wall as a teenager and, despite this one having clearly suffered at the hands of some less-than-careful previous owners, the bike’s original mean-and-moody purpose was still very much in evidence.

“It was only £800,” Stewart tells me. “I really wasn’t going to buy any more bikes, but the bloke selling it offered a test ride. I took it out and was gone for half an hour. I had a grin a mile wide when I came back and couldn’t give him the money fast enough.”

As we rode around the distillery on a whistle-stop tour, Stewart (pictured inset right) made the most of his manager’s position, opening up the warehouse. Riding through it (at walking pace of course) with the warm and heady aromas of maturing whisky wafting into my crash helmet from all angles is a riding experience I’ll not forget in a hurry.

Any sampling was off the menu as I still had to ride. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t nose. Stewart wafted two of his favourites, the 16 and 20 year olds, past my nose, and both smelt stunningly rich and deep. “I’ll often keep one of those on my desk all day, just to nose,” he admits. “Then at the end of the day I’ll unwind by drinking it.”

A mediocre night in Elgin ensued in an overpriced hotel packing all the charm of an open prison, but I couldn’t have cared less as I had Alan McConnochie’s GlenDronach samples to hand. A quick dram of the 18 year old and an aura of peaceful calm and civility was conjured up in no time.

Day three was the long haul back to London, but there was still one stop left because at the nearby Miltonduff distillery, Chivas Regal project engineer Fenton Perrie and operations manager Neal Corbett were both waiting with their bikes.

I couldn’t see them as I arrived, but I could hear them. Following the trend of making well thought out and distinct bike purchases, both had large twin-cylinder bikes and I could almost feel the ground rumbling beneath my wheels as I followed the din and found them both.

Neal had a Moto Guzzi 1200 Sport, a svelte Italian beauty with a classic thumper of an engine, while Fenton rode a Harley Davidson chopper, a rolling piece of artwork with a bark like thunder from its slash-cut exhausts.

As Neal explained when it came to bike and whisky talk: “There are all types of bikes and all types of whisky. There’s a whisky for everyone but not everybody likes the same thing. One person may like a light, fruity whisky, someone else might like a heavy, peaty whisky and, for me, that’s the difference between one rider liking a middleweight sports bike and another going for a big cruiser.”
He also agreed that riders within the whisky realm put as much thought into what they rode as they did into what they drank. “People who work in the whisky industry and ride bikes tend to have something just that little bit different.”

Leaving the two to the ferocious racket of their combined engines, I followed some route pointers they had given me to sample some more fabulous roads as I made my way back towards the border.

As I rode home and mulled over the last few days, it seemed motorcycles and whisky were after all ideal companions. Both require an adventurous spirit to draw you in, both afford ideal opportunity for exploration and friendship, and both also appeal to those who are a little more open-minded than average.

Just don’t mix them up the wrong way whatever you do.

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Have bike, will travel
The route through Scotland
• The border to Edinburgh
• Edinburgh to Aberfeldy
• Aberfeldy to Glenfarclas
• Glenfarclas to GlenDronach
• GlenDronach to BenRiach
• BenRiach to Miltonduff

Total mileage of whole trip: 1511
Number of fuel stops: 10
Best roads ridden: A827 from Ballinluig to Aberfeldy; the A920 from Dufftown to GlenDronach; B9007 between Forres and Carrbridge
Best pit-stop: The Mountain Café, Aviemore – all-day breakfast is nothing short of spectacular.
The bike
Type: Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Sport
Price: £14,295
Power: 150bhp @ 9250rpm
Weight: 192kg
Features: Electronically adjustable suspension and engine power modes for different riding conditions; ABS; extensive carbon fibre. 
Verdict: A stunning real-world superbike, with the performance of a sportsbike wrapped up in the ergonomics of a tourer. Most impressive if your pockets are deep enough.

 

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